“Accepting the invitation of the civil and ecclesial authorities as well as of the indigenous communities and peoples, the Holy Father Francis will make an apostolic trip to Canada from July 24 to 30 to visit the cities of Edmonton, quebec and Iqaluit“, announced this Friday the Vatican press office.
“I ask God for forgiveness” and “I join my brother Canadian bishops in apologizing,” the 85-year-old pontiff declared in April during an audience at the Vatican before delegations from the Métis, Inuits and native peoples of Canada.
Through the voices of indigenous people, “I have received, with great sadness in my heart, the stories of suffering, deprivation, discriminatory treatment and various forms of abuse suffered by several of you, especially in boarding schools,” Pope Francis declared. .
“I would like to be with you this year”, for the celebration of Santa Ana on July 26, he anticipated on that occasion.
The discovery of hundreds of unmarked children’s graves in recent months has shaken Canada and many survivors are hoping for a forceful gesture from the Pope.
Between the late 19th century and the 1980s, some 150,000 indigenous, mestizo, and Eskimo children were forcibly recruited into 139 boarding schools across Canada, where they were cut off from their families, their language, and their culture.
Thousands died, mainly from malnutrition, disease or neglect, in what the Committee for Truth and Reconciliation defined in 2015 as “culture genocide”. Others were physically or sexually abused.
More than 1,300 anonymous children’s graves have been found on the sites of former boarding schools in the past year, and searches continue across Canada.
Source: Ambito
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